Virtual worlds are growing in importance and popularity in businesses. As the use of virtual worlds increases, it becomes increasingly important to understand the behavioral and perceptual issues in virtual worlds. Although gender stereotypes have been widely studied in the real world along with their effects on trust perceptions, very little such research has been conducted in virtual worlds. We propose a research model to study the interaction effects of gender stereotypicality of male and female avatars and gender typicality of tasks on trust perceptions. An experiment is proposed to examine the effects of gender stereotypes on trust perceptions in virtual worlds. Implications and expected contributions are also discussed
